Film Noir Classics: America’s Dark Dreams

June 14–August 8, 2024

From The Maltese Falcon (1941) to The Killing (1956), BAMPFA’s series offers viewers a chance to see many archival 35mm prints and digital restorations of film noir masterpieces and revel in the plot twists of these vastly entertaining and suspenseful mysteries, melodramas, and crime thrillers.

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  • The Lady from Shanghai © 1948, renewed 1975 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

  • In a Lonely Place © 1950, renewed 1977 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

  • Criss Cross

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Double Indemnity

    Billy Wilder
    United States, 1944

    35mm Archival Print

    Friday, June 14 7:00 PM

    Barbara Stanwyck’s peroxide blond is the archetype of the noir femme fatale in Billy Wilder’s gleefully cynical tale of murder and insurance fraud, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Stanwyck for Best Actress. 

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  • The Lady from Shanghai

    Orson Welles
    United States, 1948

    Digital Restoration

    Sunday, June 16 3:30 PM–6:30 PM
    Lecture by David Thomson

    Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, and a deadly hall of mirrors feature in Welles’s brilliant take on the crime thriller. “Complex, courageous, and utterly compelling” (Time Out).

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  • In a Lonely Place

    Nicholas Ray
    United States, 1950
    Thursday, June 20 7:00 PM–10:00 PM
    Introduced by David Thomson

    Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame forge a fragile romance in Hollywood. “Never were despair and solitude so romantically alluring” (Time Out).

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  • Out of the Past

    Jacques Tourneur
    United States, 1947

    35mm Archival Print

    Sunday, June 23 6:00 PM–9:00 PM
    Introduced by David Thomson

    Jacques Tourneur infuses Out of the Past with all the edginess we demand of noir and bookends it with pastoral imagery and grace. “A lasting joy” (David Thomson).

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  • Phantom Lady

    Robert Siodmak
    United States, 1944
    Thursday, June 27 7:00 PM

    Robert Siodmak swathes a Cornell Woolrich mystery in Expressionist shadow. Phantom Lady is Siodmak’s masterpiece.

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  • Mildred Pierce

    Michael Curtiz
    United States, 1945

    Digital Restoration

    Sunday, June 30 5:00 PM

    Joan Crawford won an Academy Award for her driven performance in this noir melodrama that exposed the nightmare side of upward mobility and domestic virtue.

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  • The Killers

    Robert Siodmak
    United States, 1946

    Digital Restoration

    Friday, July 5 7:00 PM

    This blood-pulsing noir is based on a story by Ernest Hemingway and costars Ava Gardner and Edmond O’Brien. “Burt Lancaster is the center of the story—a hero going numb with sadness, just like Hemingway’s forlorn Swede” (David Thomson).

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  • The Blue Dahlia

    George Marshall
    United States, 1946
    Saturday, July 6 7:00 PM

    A masterpiece of the genre, full of atmosphere, this complex tale of blackmail and murder is based on a Raymond Chandler script and stars Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.

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  • The Big Clock

    John Farrow
    United States, 1948

    35mm Archival Print

    Wednesday, July 10 7:00 PM

    “Fraught with suspense, twisting its unique plot and characters to a clever and frightening conclusion” (James Monaco).

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  • The Maltese Falcon

    John Huston
    United States, 1941

    35mm Archival Print

    Thursday, July 11 7:00 PM

    An undisputed classic. “A work of entertainment so skillfully constructed that after many years and many viewings it has the same brittle explosiveness . . . that it had in its first run” (Pauline Kael).

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  • Laura

    Otto Preminger
    United States, 1944
    Wednesday, July 17 7:00 PM

    Detective Dana Andrews is enthralled by a portrait of elusive Gene Tierney in Otto Preminger’s sleek noir, a study in duplicity that asks not just whodunit, but what “it” is. Featuring Clifton Webb and Vincent Price as preening rivals.

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  • Sunset Blvd.

    Billy Wilder
    United States, 1950
    Thursday, July 18 7:00 PM

    Fledgling screenwriter William Holden stumbles into the mansion of faded silent-film superstar Gloria Swanson in Billy Wilder’s poison pen letter to Hollywood. Winner of three Academy Awards.

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  • Criss Cross

    Robert Siodmak
    United States, 1949

    Digital Restoration

    Thursday, July 25 7:00 PM

    Burt Lancaster and Yvonne De Carlo are caught in a “criss cross” of obsession and betrayal in Robert Siodmak’s compelling noir of double-dealings and a stylishly enacted armored car heist that takes all involved to the very brink.

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  • Kiss Me Deadly

    Robert Aldrich
    United States, 1955
    Sunday, August 4 7:00 PM

    Robert Aldrich melts down the B detective thriller into a vision of Armageddon in Los Angeles. Ralph Meeker is Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer. Hard-edged and savage, Kiss Me Deadly lifts the lid on 1950s apocalypse.

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  • The Killing

    Stanley Kubrick
    United States, 1956
    Thursday, August 8 7:00 PM

    Sterling Hayden heads up a phenomenal cast of B players plotting a racetrack holdup in Stanley Kubrick’s high-voltage thriller. “Not to be missed” (Chicago Reader).

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